No, Public Employee Unions Did Not Cause "Unprecedented Government Growth"

This brings us back around to public employee unions. President Kennedy signed an executive order in 1962 effectively lifting a long-standing ban against government employees organizing to bargain collectively. This, in fact, ushered in an era of unprecedented government growth at taxpayer expense.

Just one problem: That did not happen.

Here's a chart showing federal government spending as a share of GDP from 1900 to 2010, courtesy of the website USGovernmentSpending.com, which is maintained by right-wing writer Christopher Chantrill:

Notice what it doesn't show? That's right: it does not show an "era of unprecedented government growth" following Kennedy's 1962 decision to lift the ban on collective bargaining by government employees.

On December 7, President-elect Donald Trump named Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt as his pick to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Media should take note of Pruitt’s climate science denial, his deep ties to the energy industries he will be charged with regulating, and his long record of opposition to EPA efforts to reduce air and water pollution and combat climate change.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked -- or considered -- nearly a dozen people who have worked in right-wing media, including talk radio, right-wing news sites, Fox News, and conservative newspapers, to fill his administration. And Trump himself made weekly guest appearances on Fox for a number of years while his vice president used to host a conservative talk radio show.